Keeping Your Amateur Status: I Have Learned the Secret

May 20, 2018

Dr. Tom Pace

Psalm 118:24; Colossians 3:23-24; Philippians 4:12-13

Today is Senior Sunday and we’re going to recognize these graduating seniors. We’re so grateful to have some help lead us in worship today.
Our Scripture today is made up of three different passages. We’re in the midst of a series of sermons called “Keeping Your Amateur Status.” We think of being an amateur as a negative thing such as someone being amateurish. But it comes from the French word meaning “lover.” An amateur is one who does something because they love it and a professional is someone who does something because they are getting paid to do it, or they have to do it. So we’re talking about how we keep doing what we do in our Christian life and in life in general. Not because we “should –a” or “wanna” or “have- to” but because we love it.
I want you to listen now as we hear the Scripture read. Open your ears but also open your hearts.
This is the day that theLordhas made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Psalm 118:24
Whatever your task, put yourselves into it, as done for the Lord and not for your masters, since you know that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward; you servethe Lord Christ. Colossians 3:23-24
I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need.I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Philippians 4:12-13
Let us join in prayer. Gracious God, open us up. Open our eyes that we might see and our ears that we might hear your word in these words. Open our hearts God that we might be transformed from the inside out and then, O God, open our hands that we might serve. In the name of Christ we pray. Amen.
Many years ago when I was a youth pastor we took a group of young people to a place in Tennessee called Christian Wilderness Adventures, Confrontation Point was its name. I think we went there for three years, though I can’t remember exactly. But it was days of backpacking, climbing, and whitewater rafting. It was great fun. But one year on the backpacking part of the trip it rained. And I mean it rained, and it rained and it rained. All the trails were just like mud and mush and all of our stuff got wet. We were wet and the socks were wet and so we got big blisters. It was fun. We were so glad we paid to go.
There was this woman who was a counselor from Confrontation Point. The place would provide us with guides and counselors along with the ones we brought. Her name was Sylvia and she was amazing. You’d look at her and you wouldn’t think that she was an outdoorswoman. She was a college student. But it seemed that she was happy all the time. Someone was talking that Katie Brown maybe comes from the same place.
But we were grumpy – all of us were. But not Sylvia. She’d sing hymns as we backpacked. Then this girl who was one of our students was walking along the trail and there was this thorn branch that came out across. She sort of pushed it out of the way and went on by and it came back and hit Sylvia. It made a big gash across her face, there was blood coming down, but it didn’t seem to bother her. “It’s all right,” she said, “I’m okay” I was amazed at Sylvia.
Do you know people like that who it seems that regardless of what’s happening around them, they live out of a different place.
I always think of Sylvia when I read Paul’s letter to the Philippians. I try and read it about once a month. If you can, read Philippians, because Paul is so positive and starts out full of gratitude. He says, “I thank God for you every time I remember you in my prayers for your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.”
Just all through it he talks about servanthood and yet at the same time in the midst of that part about servanthood he’s so full of joy. In Chapter four he says, “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say rejoice.”
Where does that come from? Paul wrote Philippians from jail with the probability of his own execution ahead. And still it seems to come from someplace. How can you live like that?
So we’re in this series on keeping your amateur status. How can you live regardless of what’s happening around you from a place where you decide you’re going to love life? And you’re going to love serving God.
He says, “In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need.” I have learned the secret.
These seniors are headed off for whatever’s next for them. It might be work or college – who knows? But we sort of at this time of year kind of paint this picture of how it’s going to be so awesome! And I really just want to manage expectations here. I just want to manage expectations because I’ve had five kids go off to college and there are parts of it that are awesome. But there are parts too that are just hard. It can be lonely. You can sort of get priorities all goofed up and then you feel like your life is kind of askew. There are parts of it where there’s hard work and it just feels like a grind. You’re just doing that, and then you keep at it until you graduate.
Then you go to work and you lose all your vacation and you only get two weeks of vacation a year. And that counts the week between Christmas and New Year’s. So you do that and you work really hard and you grind away all through life and then you die. And that’s the end.
So I just want to manage expectations. Let’s sing our closing hymn and we’ll go home.
No, I guess it’s a grind but parts of it are going to be awesome. What I want you to hear is: “In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret…” In the part of my life that’s ahead that’s awesome and in the part of my life that’s ahead that is not so awesome, that’s difficult, that’s challenging, that is a grind. “In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret…” of being content. It is an internal decision we make. It is a way of living that is the key, is the secret to keeping our amateur status. To continuing to love life, to love work, to love whatever it is we’re about doing.
What I’d like to do is look at these three verses. These are some of my favorites and I think they teach us so much about how to go about loving life.
“This is the day that theLordhas made;let us rejoice and be glad in it.”
When I remember Sylvia, I remember her singing two songs while we walked. One was this one which we learned in pre-school: “This is the day, this is the day…” You remember that one? She’d sing along and try to get us to respond and we’re like, “I’m not singing.” The other song was “Rejoice in the Lord always.. Again I say rejoice.” It was a little round and she’d try to get us singing in a round but we didn’t really want to buy in because we were grumpy.
My former boss was a woman named Janice Riggle Huie, she was our bishop here for 12 years and she was an amazing lady. She retired two years ago and in her farewell or retirement message she looked back at all her years in the ministry. She was one of the first women to be elected bishop and she’d been in little churches and big churches. She had one of her children pass away. She looked back over her life and she had this little phrase she repeated over and over: “It’s all grace. It’s all grace. It’s all grace.”
The word grace in Greek is the same as the word for gift. Grace is an unmerited, undeserved gift from God. Your life is a gift. It’s a gift from God. Today – “This is the day the Lord has made…” This day is a gift from God to you. So what will you do with that gift? How will you choose to live this day?
We see people who just sort of get through it. They say, “I’m going to survive the day.” And that’s okay. There are times when that’s all you can do. But if that becomes your way of life - just surviving the day, and not choosing to accept it as an amazing gift of God. “So this is the day that the Lord has made, Let us rejoice and be glad in it” is from Psalm 118:24 and verse 28 says “And thanks be to God, my God.” I’m saying thank you to God for this gift.
So you’ve heard the phrase “put a bow on it.” We usually mean by that, you’re going to tie it all up. Well, I’m going to use another image. “Put a bow on it” I mean that it’s a gift. You put a bow on a gift. So if you believe that each day and each thing that happens, that each experience is a gift…I’m going to say that this amazing anthem that we just heard - that’s a gift. The Word of God is a gift so I’m going to put it right there. Rob Dulaney, you’re a gift. So I’m going to put this right on you. You’re going to wear it the rest of the day. You’re going to wear it all through the senior luncheon. That’s a gift.
It doesn’t mean that everything that happens is a gift from God. I heard a sermon not too long ago where the pastor talked about life being a grind sometimes. Then he had this great phrase – “There’s a gift in the grind.” In the negative things that happen to us those things - God didn’t send death upon 10 students and teachers at Santa Fe. That’s not a gift. The gift is in that. In the midst of all that’s going on there are incredible gifts of God’s presence who’ve stepped into those moments and said, “We’re going to show people what love looks like.” There’s a gift in that.
The first key to rejoicing always is in any and all circumstances, give thanks to God for the gifts in the midst of them. Today, each moment. It’s a click of the perspective that changes how you view everything.
Here’s the second thing. From Colossians: “Whatever your task, put yourselves into it, as done for the Lord and not for your masters.” Whatever your task put yourself into it.
Now part of what that means is to find some way, so you’re working for the Lord. Whatever you’re doing, work for the Lord. Part of it is to find something that you care about, that you believe in, that is part of God’s purposes and jump aboard it. Put yourself into it. Lean into it.
God is in the business of drawing God’s people to him and of fixing the broken world we’re a part of. Is there some way you can be a part of what God’s doing? No matter what you do for a living, ask yourself, “How does what I’m doing, how is it a part of what God’s doing? Just a little tiny part.” When you begin to understand that then life takes a different picture, work takes a different picture.
I want to be careful here because sometimes I think we in the church do a disservice to people. What we’ve done is preach this – I’ve preached this. Forgive me. It is that God has a special purpose for you, a very special purpose. And you need to find your calling. Find your purpose. That one thing, that one single thing that if you jump aboard life will be fulfilling for you. So what happens is we go around saying, “Is this it? No, probably not. No, that doesn’t feel all that fulfilling. So I’m going to go over here and try that. No, that doesn’t feel right. No, that must not be it either.” People go through life with a sort of frustration thinking, “I haven’t found my calling. I haven’t found my calling.”
Listen again to the Scripture: “Whatever your task, put yourselves into it.” It doesn’t say, “Find your task, find the right one.” It says, “Whatever your task…”
Do you realize that it’s only in the last 200 years, maybe at the outside and certainly only in the West where you get to choose at all what you’re going to do with your life? For the rest of the folks over centuries and centuries and in most of the world if you were born a farmer, you’re going to be a farmer. If you were born as a hunter, then you’re going to be a hunter. If your mother was a homemaker, then you’re going to be a homemaker. That’s the way it was. You didn’t get to look for your special calling as a vocation that way.
It was part of the circumstances of your life. Whatever your task put yourself into it.
Mike Murphy is an HR professional who wrote a book. He tells the story of how Southwest Airlines interviews potential pilots for their organization. Actually, not just pilots but others, too. They come into a room and this is their first level. A group of people comes into a room and they’re all dressed up. You guys know that you dress up for a job interview? So they come in all dressed up for a job interview and the HR folks come in. They have a bunch of brown shorts and they put them in a pile in the middle of the room. They tell the candidates, “You might want to put on some brown shorts.” Then they walk out.
There are dressing rooms around the room and they stay gone about 15 minutes and they come back in. Anyone who’s put on the brown shorts gets to stay and everyone else has to go. They call it their “brown short exercise.” They say, “We only want people who are willing to put on the brown shorts, instead of those people who think, ‘No, I don’t think I want to do that…’”
His book is called Hiring for Attitude: A Revolutionary Approach to Recruiting and Selecting People with Both Tremendous Skills and Superb Attitude. His whole point is that only 12% of what makes you successful in whatever job is your technical skill level. The rest of it is about attitude. Are you willing to jump in? Are you willing to go for it? Are you willing to … what does the Scripture say? “Whatever your task, put yourself into it. Do the very best you can. Strive for excellence in whatever way.”
Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook, wrote a book called Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead, and it’s really aimed at women executives, detailing how many women executives over the decades have leaned out. Leaned out as opposed to how men have tended to lean in. She said that when she first went to Facebook, the very first day she said she was scared. She thought, “This is like big time and I’m supposed to run this place.” She said that the question that got her through more than anything else was this: “What would I do if I weren’t afraid?”
Because what happens most of the time is we have this fear that jumps up and holds us back. We don’t lean in.
Do you know how many dreams have died between this room and the parking lot? God speaks to you somehow in a worship service and you think, “You know what I’m going to do?” But by the time you get to the parking lot you’re thinking, “No, never mind.” Something keeps you from leaning in to it. “Whatever the task put yourself into it.”
Here’s the third component of this living, of choosing to love life, to love your work. So listen, “I know what it is to have little, I know what it is to have plenty, in any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well fed and going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I have learned the secret…” It’s like you know the secret and you’re leaning in – saying, “Come on, tell me the secret.” Then it says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
This is one of those verses that you put on a coffee cup. Or embroider it and hang it on the wall. But we take it out of context and we misunderstand it. What we tend to focus on is like “With Jesus I can be Superman. I can leap tall buildings in a single bound. I can do anything with Jesus!”
If I’m four foot six inches tall, even with Jesus I’m not going to be a professional basketball player. It’s just not going to happen. That’s not what this is about. This is talking about how you face the circumstances of your life and rejoice in the Lord always. And be content. How can you face that? How can you deal with that?
I’m going to just change two words. You know the New Testament is translated from Greek and so the translations often vary. I’m going to change just two words because I think it helps us understand the meaning of this passage better. “I will do everything with him who strengthens me.” Whatever I do, I will do everything there is with him who strengthens me. I’m not going to go through it alone.
When we’re working with church people and we want to get them involved in something there are really two drivers to that. Driver one is, “What is it? Is it the right thing? Are they gifted for it?” If they’re introverted we’re not going to send them out as a greeter on the front lawn because they’re just going to stand there. So we wanted to fit who they are.
But the other half is to ask, “With whom are they going to do it?” So your best friend calls and asks “Do you want to teach Vacation Bible School with me?” You say, “Sure.” Somebody invites you to an event at the church – a work day at the church. You ask this question: “Who else is going to be there?” That’s because you know that what makes something joyful is the connection that you have. What this passage is saying is that no matter what’s happening, you’ve got one friend, that God is going to be with you through everything. And that’s what’s going to make it joyful.
Today is Pentecost Sunday. We wear red. Pentecost comes 50 days after Passover, 50 days after Easter in the Christian world. In the Jewish world this is Shavuot and that’s the day in which they remember that the law was given to Moses on Mt. Sinai.
In Acts 2 it says, “When the day of Pentecost had come…” The day that they celebrate the gift of the law, we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit. We don’t just have a book of laws to follow.
Paul says over and over, “You’re not under the law. You live by the Spirit.” Instead of a book we’ve got the very presence of God right in our heart, right in our lives at the very core of who we are. No matter what we do, no matter what challenge comes our way, we’re not going to do it alone.
And as we choose to live life filled with the Holy Spirit in partnership with Jesus hand in hand that’s pure joy. That’s where Sylvia lives from. Sylvia says, “I can handle this rain. I can handle these thorns. I can handle everything that comes my way. Because I’m doing it with God.” And that’s pure joy.
Let’s pray. Gracious and loving God, we confess to you that sometimes we don’t lean into life. We don’t view it as a gift from you. We think if we can just change our circumstances, get a new job, or move to a new place, or have a new house or something we’ll be content. But we know better, God. We know that there’s a decision inside us that makes the difference. So we pray that you will pour your Holy Spirit into our hearts and lives, so that we too would have the secret that in any and all circumstances we can rejoice. Amen.